Trailer

Final Products - Ancillary Tasks

Poster

Magazine Cover

Evaluation Question 4.

Evaluation Question 3.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I wanted to get a lot of audience feedback from my work, primarily when it came to the initial stages of my construction process.  I mainly wanted to make sure that I was creating what the audience wanted from the outset so that I made a trailer that was going to be popular and liked by target audience.  I also did a lot of audience feedback when it came to planning and researching the type of trailer that I was going to create.  This was to make sure that I was conforming to the type of film that a modern audience would want to see. 

In the initial stages of my research, I conducted a questionnaire to see how often people watch films and to see how long people prefer to watch trailers for.  This would allow me to decide between creating a teaser trailer and a theatrical trailer.  This questionnaire helped me come to the conclusion that I was going to put together a theatrical trailer with a cliffhanger at the beginning of the trailer.  I thought that this would be a good idea to keep the audience intrigued into what is happening throughout the trailer, hoping to get some sort of answer.  I realised that this has worked well and also added a sense of confusion to the trailer that was designed to make people want to go and watch the film in the cinemas to see what would happen between the characters.  In the construction stage of my trailer I put together short sequences at a time and posted them to youtube and facebook to ask for feedback as to what I could change to make it look better or how to show the storyline better, which helped me a lot when it came to piecing together the whole thing.  The audience feedback that I got from this process allowed me to produce a much more professional trailer that showed information to the audience in a lot more depth, which is another thing that I wasn’t initial going to do. 

In regards to my poster and magazine cover I conducted a significant amount of audience feedback research, so that I could get the type of poster and magazine cover.  In the initial stages of my research, I asked the audience what film magazine they would be most likely to buy and the results conducted that there was a slight advantage towards Empire over the likes of Total Film and Entertainment Weekly.  This set up the branding for the name of the magazine, which worked will with the colour scheme that I went on to use.  I also tested two different photographs on the front of both the magazine cover and the poster and posted the images to facebook so that I could see what the audience preferred.  This helped me greatly, despite the votes being very close together, making it hard to make a final decision.  I think that it finally came down to the one that I thought was more professional and the one that people had more to say about. 

Overall I think that the audience feedback that I conducted on both the ancillary and main tasks, helped me to further the work that I was producing.  Without the feedback from the audience that I would be showing, I wouldn’t have been sure as to whether I was appealing to them or alienating certain people or simply not conforming to their views on drama films.  This is why audience feedback was a very important part of the production of my media and why it helped me create the best work that I could for the audience.

Evaluation Question 2.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Both my main product and ancillary tasks work hand in hand to give the audience the type of drama film that they want to experience.  I think that personally, I managed to get the relationship between the characters across extremely well on the poster and magazine cover, looking happy to entice the audience into wanting to know more.  When looked at against the trailer, it shows that there is only part of the story being shown, which is something that I wanted to show through my products.


The poster for the film has many conventions of professional and existing film posters that are out there, due to the way that I chose to construct the poster itself.  After looking at many posters and how they related to the film, I thought that this would be the best way to make the correspond, as I was inspired by the way that the Intouchables poster was constructed alongside the film.  I decided that I was going to construct my own in a similar fashion, but using some of my own ideas which is why I put it together like this.  Firstly, I think that the image that I chose to use for the poster cover corresponds really well with the relationship that we begin to see throughout the trailer.








This part of the trailer works well with the image on the front of the poster, due to the fact that it has some of the same emotions such as we can see from the screenshot of my trailer. The idea that the characters are always happy is presented in the poster alongside this scene from the trailer, which is something that I wanted to portray in my poster.  I also tried to used the same fonts and a similar colour scheme in the poster and trailer to make sure that you can tell that the two correspond and that the audience would be able to recognise this. My magazine cover was also constructed in a similar way, using conventions of magazine covers to make it work for the audience when they are comparing it alongside the trailer and looking at the vibe that it gives off.

As you can see the poster also has the same sort of emotion that we can see in the poster and also the feel that we get from the trailer.  I think the two ancillary tasks work very well together as the characters are wearing the same clothing, which was something that I thought was very important and it is also effective in the sense that it is in keeping with both the trailer and the poster as this is very important when distributing and promoting a film.

When producing the poster and magazine cover, I made sure that I used the same actors, wearing the same costumes, so that an audience can tell how they link together.  This was important to me, so that I could get across the idea of my trailer and film to the audience.  The two ancillary tasks would have had to of linked together so that it would fit with the trailer.  I did this in a number of ways.

Firstly, I made sure that the emotion in both the poster and the magazine cover images, were replicating the feel of the trailer.  This was important in order for the audience to understand the most prominent emotion that they should feel.  I thought that it would be a good idea to have the two main actors happy and laughing in conversation so that they can see the relationship between the characters from the outset and even before they begin to view the trailer.  I also wanted to keep the clothes and the colour scheme the same so that there is consistency throughout both of the products and also so that they both work with the trailer.

I also thought that it would be a good idea to look more at the composition of the images so that it appeals more to the audience as a whole.  This is something that I really wanted to take into account as it automatically directs it's appeal at certain types of people through the way that it is positioned.

Evaluation Question 1.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I first thought about how I can use, develop and challenge forms and convention in my own work when it came to researching and planning the trailer that I was going to make.  After conducting a lot of research into existing trailers that were similar to my own trailer I was intending to make, I thought that it would be a good idea to both use the conventions that I was seeing, developing the in my own way and also challenging the conventions, especially when it came to changing the relationship between the two characters.  This was important to me so that I could get a strong sense of the fact that they are unlikely friends, which is why this was the title of the film.  I mainly chose to develop the conventions that I was seeing in films such as The Untouchables and The Blind Side, so that I could make my trailer unique, but still conform to existing media that is out there.  It is fair to say that the majority of drama films are mainly based around a realistic scenario, which is why creating a sense of verisimilitude in my own drama trailer was highly important to me, in order to relate to a wide variety of people.

I decided that I was obviously going to use conventions of drama trailers, so that I could appeal to my target audience and appeal to the large majority of people that like watching drama films.  Such conventions involve including realistic relationships, which is very important when trying to engage an audience.  This is something that I both decided to use and develop so that I could appeal to a wider audience.  I used this convention in the sense that I made up a realistic scenario of a young boy who feels isolated both at home and outside of the home.  Alongside the young boy, the old lady is also very isolated and has no-one around her, which creates a connection between the two characters, that the audience can relate to.  This is creating the idea of verisimilitude that a lot of people like to see, especially when they are watching drama trailers and films as it makes them feel more involved in the storyline.  Storyline is something else that I wanted to use in my own trailer, as a convention of drama films is the dramatic course that they take.  This was important to me because without a dramatic storyline that the audience can follow, they wouldn’t be very interested in what is going on.  I developed this idea by positioning the disequilibrium from the film at the beginning of my trailer and also half way through to highlight what is going on and to make sure the audience know that it is important.  In this way, I challenged the stereotypical view that a drama trailer would take, starting off happy and cheery and I thought that the outcome was really unique.  I mainly chose the use the conventions of drama films when it came to the ancillary tasks as I thought that there were a lot more stereotypical conventions that I could use and also develop in my own way.  In the creation of the poster, I did this through using an existing poster that I had been looking at a lot.  I took many conventions from the film poster ‘The Untouchables’ as I thought that it was a very relatable film.  I used conventions such as the composition of the main photograph and the text and positioning of all of the writing.  I chose a different colour scheme to develop to emotion that is felt throughout the trailer.  In regards to the magazine I took conventions from magazines such as Empire and Total Film, as research would suggest that they are the two most popular film magazines.  Much like Empire, I decided to use a red and black colour scheme, with a few of the colours from my own production, which is somewhat of a beige, very natural colour to replicate the characters in the film.  This was important so that people would gain a better understanding of the type of film it would be, rather than having to read up about it.  I developed the stereotypical idea of Empire by adding a simple film strip at the bottom of the page, including shots from the film, rather than other films as I wanted it to be the main focus of the front cover.  This made the magazine cover look unique and a lot more intriguing to look at.

I challenged forms of conventions in many ways.  Firstly, in my trailer, I chose to use very unlikely characters of a young boy and an old lady, which is something that you wouldn’t usually see when watching a film.  You would certainly not see the two as being good friends, which is a relationship convention that I chose to challenge.  I wanted to get the idea across that any two people can be connected by similar lives and that it can happen to anyone, which is something that I believe I got across in a very simple and believable way, still challenging the character conventions of drama films.  This makes my film stand out amongst others as it give it it’s own personality, which it another thing that I wanted to achieve.  Despite challenging this convention I was still conforming in the sense that it draws the audience away from what they think is going to happen, which seemed to be a very stereotypical convention of drama films.  Despite the conforming of areas of my drama trailer, I am still challenging people’s views on the type of relationships that we can have, which is a stereotype that I wanted to break.  In regards to my ancillary tasks, I think I generally conformed with the conventions that I have seen from conducting researching into both film posters and magazine covers as I thought it would be an area that should have some consistency in order to make sure that the audience feels like they know what’s going on.  I challenged the conventions of posters somewhat, by jumbling up the layout slightly, having some of the information at the top of the page to stand out, which is something that I only rarely see in drama posters.  I also used very natural colours which challenges the colour scheme conventions of posters as they are usually designed to stand out.  I decided to create my poster using this colour scheme because I didn’t want to take all of the attention away from the main image and the information such as the title of the film and the info at the top of the poster.  In regards the magazine I decided to keep the majority of it very conventional as I didn’t want people to feel uneasy when they were looking for a magazine to buy.  I challenged some conventions in regards to the amount of coverlines that were on the page.  I limited the amount of information that was actually on the page so that the audience would be more drawn into the main image, rather than wonder what is going on around it.  I did this because I wanted the audience to mainly be captured by the theme behind my film and so that they would be more inclined to wonder about the background of the characters and the storyline of the film itself.

I think that it is fair to say that I used, developed and challenged various forms of convention to a significant extent in order to create a suitably professional media product, that appeals to the majority of drama film watchers and hits my target audience of 16 – 24 year old females.